Hewlett Packard has refurbished their Tablet PC Slate 500 and rolled out the Slate 2. The Slate 2 will carry a price tag of $699, bringing it down by a hundred dollars. The major changes to the 8.9 inch tablet are the addition of Swype and a change of processor to Intel Atom Z670. HP has also reduced the SSD capacity to 32 GB as they wish to provide a more secure option for their users, since their customers in the IT business will add more safety nets. Another important feature that the Slate 2 boasts of is the installation of TPM circuitry and Computrace Pro software which track down stolen or misplaced laptops and erase the data remotely. This screen is also multi touch and allows for gesture recognition.
HP has called this a device for the business market and also for utility arenas like education, medicine, governance or retail. However, many press releases by HP have reiterated the fact that the Slates are predominantly for the business folk. They also stress on the inclusion of Swype. This new data entry software allows text input through a single move of the finger or stylus over the whole keyboard layout, which the software processes as a word. The Intel Atom Z670 gives better battery life, faster processing and ergo, better performance.
The Slate 2’s Intel Atom Z670 processor combines with SSD based memory to provide faster data access than its predecessor. The Slate 2 comes with a few optional add-ons. One of them is the HP Retail Mobile Point of Sale case. This case comes with a magnetic stripe reader and a barcode reader to assist retailers with a portable option of transaction and also a way to make sales more personalised. Another add-on is the HP Slate Bluetooth keyboard which will contain a rechargeable Bluetooth keyboard and digital pen.
